The Azes era was identified with the Vikrama era when a date in a
year "of King Azes the Great" was read for the first time on
the Indravarman casket in 1978, making more likely what had been
suspected before. Doubts about this identification have been brought
forward occasionally.

The present study starts from a new reading of the so-called
Trasaka reliquary. In addition to its month called "intercalary
Gorpiaios" a year number could be read as 172. This particular
month is only intercalary in the Arsacid model of the Macedonian
calendar and here it occurs only once in every 19 year cycle. Starting
from a Vikrama year 1, year 172 would not produce an intercalary
Gorpiaios. Starting from those years which in fact produced one, the
beginning of the era of Azes must be shifted earlier or later than the
Vikrama starting point. A series of comparisons with the so-called
Yavana era and the Arsacid era led to a new start of the Azes era in
48/7 (autumn-based year) or 47/6 BC (spring-based year). This sheds
light also on the nature of the starting point of the Kaniska era.

King Azes has been known since the days of Charles Masson, who
collected coins in the 1830s in Gandhara proper and eastern Afghanistan.
These coins are inscribed in a Greek genitive AZOY, and on the reverse,
again in a genitive form, as ayasa in Kharosthl. The respective Greek
nominative *AZOS has not surfaced so far. The Kharosthl form ayasa was
first found in combination with a date comprising year, month and day on
the Taxila silver scroll. (1) As early as 1914, Marshall suggested that
this date followed an era named after king aya. While marshall
considered the possibility, rapson was the first scholar who firmly
equated this era with the Vikrama era, starting in 58/57 BC. (2) Other
solutions for the word ayasa were offered as well, until in 1978 bailey
published the Indravarman reliquary, in which the era was given not as
ayasa, but as maharajasa ayasa. Instantly, the meaning of ayasa was
beyond dispute. Three scholars (BlVAR 1981, fussman 1980, Salomon 1982)
almost immediately referred to this new evidence and it became customary
to speak of the "proof that the era of Azes is the Vikrama
era". In fact, all that had been proved was that aya was King Azes.
The conjectural nature of the linkage between the aya era and Vikrama
samvat was unaffected by the new evidence.

Nonetheless, the equation of Azes' era and the Vikrama era did
not appear to be blatantly wrong and was defended for practical reasons
by all--except for two scholars in London, Elizabeth Errington and Joe
Cribb.

1 The "Trasaka" Reliquary

The pivotal starting point for the present study is found in two
inscriptions preserved on the outside and inside of the same schist
reliquary. The two texts were published by G. FUSSMAN in 1985, after
which the object and the texts became known as the "Trasaka"
reliquary. The letters are not very carefully incised and the scribes
did not take much care that others could read the text.

This attitude has left us with one of the most ambiguous collection
of Kharosthl characters. FUSSMAN's readings are all possible, but,
as usual with carelessly written Kharosthl, many other readings are
possible. A new study suffers from the fact that the object seems to
have disappeared from public view and every reading must rely on the
photographs provided in FUSSMAN 1985, plates a-b. Each one shows a
bright spot where the room light was reflected, and at those places the
readings are even more insecure than at others. Since the boost which
FUSSMAN's studies of Kharosthl texts provided for this branch of
epigraphy in the last two or three decades of the last century, many
more texts have become known, particularly in the form of birch-bark
manuscripts. Our knowledge of Kharosthl today profits from the many
insights of that period but can draw on more recent results from a wide
body of scholars. It is no wonder, therefore, that new editions are
possible, and in some cases even necessary. A new edition of the first
text is in the press; here, only those parts are dealt with which
directly concern chronology.

1.1 The first text

The date formula on the first text on the outside of the lid reads:

samvatsaraye sapamcdisasadame masa ire daasa 20-1-1-1.

"In the year one hundred and fifty-six, in month Ira, on day
23."

This translation differs from FusSMAN's reading on three
points. First, the year number consists of 6 (sa), 50 (pamcaisa) (3) and
100 (sada). For reasons of chronological likelihood, FUSSMAN (1985: 38)
understood the year number as equivalent to Skt. Satpancasattama and
ended with a year 56. Later, this interpretation was corrected by
SALOMON (1995: 131a) to "156". The second difference concerns
the month Ira, which is otherwise unknown in Gandhara. FUSSMAN was
looking for a Greek equivalent and found nothing in the Macedonian
terminology. We propose to regard it as the Babylonian month Aiaru. The
Babylonian month names Nisannu and Ululu are also found in Gandhara (see
below). The development could have been Aiaru [right arrow] *eru [right
arrow] *era [right arrow] ira, in which case the phonological
difficulties involved are not insurmountable.

The third difference concerns the day. FUSSMAN saw four strokes
after the cipher for 20. However, there are only three clear short
verticals, whereas the sign following them starts as a vertical and ends
in a left-bound bend. I take this to be a letter, i.e. the first letter
of the man hitherto called trasaka. The most likely solution is a na, so
that trasaka would have to be renamed natrasaka, natasaka or similar.
The same letter re-occurs in the second instance, where FUSSMAN took it
for a -sa attached to the previous word, resulting in a genitive
obstructing the syntax of the whole sentence. The letter looks like a na
again, rather clear in this case, followed by trasakaJtasaka. This way
the sentence mentioning the two donors does justice to the shape of the
letters and the syntax at the same time and in addition

does away with four strokes denoting 4, while a 4 in all other
genuine cases comes as an Andrew's cross, X.

1.2 The second text

The second text was read and translated as follows by FUSSMAN
(1985: 37f.):

This would be the only case where a date consists of just month and
day, without the year number. The introduction is rather plain, speaking
of "these relics" as something well-known. In fact, this is a
re-dedication inscribed during a rebuilding or enlargement of the
initial construction. The first term open for discussion is

FUSSMAN's apabrukasa, where an equally nonsensical
aprakhrakasa also seems possible. (4) The letters are shown in outline
in the first five characters of Fig. 1 to facilitate further proposals.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

More important for the present study are the following words, where
instead of a barely comprehensible duasya [sjatriena trama I read the
required ordinal number dua-satatisadama, "(one) hundred and
seventy-two".

This large discrepancy needs a palaeographical justification.
FUSSMAN's sya looks like a sam, but the lower arc is also found
elsewhere without being phonetically justified. The [s]a is a clear ta;
the tri is a ti, with underline as in all other occurrences; the
-istroke is misplaced here as in pratithapida earlier; e-na is a sa
written in two movements resulting in two hooks facing each other, and
tra is a da.

This reading must be compared with the first text. There is a time
difference of just 16 years. Nowhere else do we find the ordinal
'hundred' as plain sadama, with d and no apparent locative
ending, as otherwise in satame or satamae, satamaye. If this was not the
same scribe as the one responsible for the outside, the second one came
from the same school as the first. The numbers make the succession of
both texts absolutely clear: the outside of the lid came first in year
156, followed by the inside of the body of the reliquary in year 172.

The complete second inscription on this reliquary reads and
translates in my view:

"These relics of the Lord are (deposited) in veneration of all
the Buddhas, (as a pious donation) of Aprakhraka?, son of Heliophilos;
one-hundred-seventy-second (year), intercalary month Gorpiaios, day
8."

It remains to define the era used. FUSSMAN and all who followed him
opted for the Azes era for the first inscription. The same era should
apply to year 172 as well.

It seems easier to supply a standard danamukhe for the genitive of
the donor than to link the date with the "son of Heliophilos".
In the latter case we would get a person responsible for the
introduction of the era, so that Azes would appear as the "son of
Heliophilos", which presently seems difficult to imagine.

2 The Macedonian Date

While a number of Kharosthl and Bactrian inscriptions include dates
using Macedonian month names, (5) the second date in the Trasaka
reliquary, year 172 Gorpiaios embolimos 8, is unique in that the month
is intercalary. (6) It provides an opportunity to date the inscription,
and to determine the epoch of its era, by comparing it to intercalary
years in other Macedonian calendars.

Three distinct variants of the lunar Macedonian calendar are known.
(7) The most extensively documented, and the most idiosyncratic, is the
Macedonian calendar of Ptolemaic Egypt, but this variant is not relevant
here. In Seleucid territories, the Macedonian year was aligned with the
Babylonian year such that Dios, the first Macedonian month, usually fell
in Tashritu, the seventh Babylonian month. (8)

The Babylonian year began in the spring, close to the vernal
equinox, and the calendar was intercalated in 7 years of a 19 year
cycle. In six of the seven intercalary years, the intercalary month
followed the last ordinary month of the year as Addaru II. In the
seventh, it was inserted after the sixth month, as Ululu II. It is
generally held that the Seleucid Macedonian calendar was intercalated on
the same cycle, though the available evidence, both from Seleucid
territories and from Macedonia itself, suggests that the start of the
year was actually kept close to the fall equinox. This results in an
intercalary cycle which is usually aligned to the Babylonian cycle but
is occasionally out of phase with it.9 In this scheme, intercalations
occurred after Xandikos (= Addaru) and after Hyperberetaios (= Ululu),
often, though not always, coincident with Babylonian intercalations.

The third variant was used in Arsacid territories at least as early
as 48/7 BC. (10) Like the second, it was aligned with the Babylonian
calendar, but with a shift of one month: Dios fell in Arahsamnu rather
than Tashritu. (11) The available intercalary evidence is consistent
with the view that the Arsacid Macedonian year was exactly aligned to
the Babylonian calendar, i.e., six of the seven intercalary months
followed Dystros (= Addaru) while the seventh followed Gorpiaios (=
Ululu). In this scheme, Gorpiaios embolimos (= Ululu II) occurs only
once in every 19 year cycle. (12)

If there was ever any doubt that the Bactrian Greeks used a
Macedonian calendar, it was put to rest by the publication of a tax
receipt dated to Oloios in year 4 of Antimachos (Rea, SENIOR &
HOLLIS 1994). That a Macedonian calendar was used under the
Indo-Scythians, the Indo-Parthians and the Kushans is also beyond doubt.
The 14 known Macedonian dates cover 8 month names, and the reliquary of
Trasaka uses the Greek term embolimos (yambulima) for an intercalation.
Until now, the specific variety of Macedonian calendar has not been
clear. Pingree assumed that it was the Seleucid calendar, but with the
year realigned to start in spring, in Artemisios (PlNGREE 1982: 355).
RAPSON assumed that the Macedonian month and era of the Patika copper
plate inscription was Parthian (RAPSON 1922: 570). On circumstantial
grounds we might suppose that the Bactrian Greeks used the Seleucid
calendar, though they certainly abandoned the Seleucid era. (13)
Equally, we might suppose, with RAPSON, that the Indo Scythians,
Indo-Parthians and the Kushans used the Parthian Macedonian calendar in
light of their Parthian background and the close connections between
them. (14)

Before FusSMAN's publication of the Trasaka reliquary, the
only calendrical evidence on the point was the appearance of the
Babylonian months Ululu, in the Laghman II inscription of Asoka (DAVARY
& HUMBACH 1974: 11), and Nisannu, in the Surkh Kotal inscription SK4
of Kaniska year 31 (GERSHEVITCH 1979: 64), to which we may now add
FALK's reading above of year 156 Aiaru 23 in the first inscription
of the Trasaka reliquary. These dates imply that the Bactrian calendar
remained closely tied to the Babylonian calendar, established under the
Achaemenids. The Gorpiaios embolimos of the Trasaka reliquary
demonstrates that the Macedonian calendar it used followed the Arsacid
rather than the Seleucid solar alignment. The obvious inference, that
Trasaka's calendar was the Arsacid Macedonian calendar, governed by
the Babylonian intercalary cycle, receives additional support from the
likely significance of the date. In that calendar, Gorpiaios embolimos
is a month which only appears once every 19 years, and the eighth day
is, within a day or two, the date of the fall equinox, a particularly
auspicious date. (15)

The era of the inscription is not named. The era of Kaniska, now
dated by Falk with a high degree of likelihood to AD 127/8 (Falk 2001,
2004), is too late on paleographic and linguistic grounds, and is anyway
excluded because the year number exceeds 100. (16) The two other eras
that were certainly in use are the era of Azes and the Yavana era as
found on the Rukhuna reliquary. (17) The linguistic comparisons
published by salomon to other reliquaries, including one explicitly
dated to 126 Azes, suggest that the Azes era is the most likely (salomon
1995: 130).

The Rukhuna reliquary, dated to 201 Yavana = 73 Azes, Sravana 8,
proves that the era of Azes began 128 years after the era of the Yavanas
(Salomon 2005). The era of Azes is widely assumed to be the same as the
later Vikrama era, starting in 58/7 BC, which dates the epoch of the era
of the Yavanas to 186/5 BC. However, if this inscription uses the
Arsacid Macedonian calendar, its epoch cannot fall in either year. Year
172 falls exactly 9 cycles of 19 years after year 1. Therefore the era
began in a Parthian Macedonian year that was also intercalary in
Gorpiaios. While 186/5 and 58/7 were both intercalary Macedonian years,
neither of them meets this constraint. As we have seen above, six of the
seven intercalary years in the 19 year intercalary cycle have
intercalary months after Dystros. The expected intercalary month for
both 186/5 and 58/7 is Dystros embolimos, and this is also the latest
possible position which preserves the correct alignment of the
Macedonian year at the start of the next spring-based year on the
Babylonian cycle.

The assumption that the Azes era is the same as the Vikrama era
ultimately depends on Occam's Razor: the two eras certainly began
around the same time, so the simplest model, in the absence of contrary
evidence, is that they are two names for the same era. (18) Some
credibility is perhaps given by the fact that the name of the Vikrama
era demonstrably changed from time to time. (19) However, the example of
the Kaniska era, long identified by many scholars with the Saka era of
AD 78/9 on similar grounds, demonstrates the risk of over-reliance on
such reductionist reasoning, and the date we are now considering creates
a reductionist dilemma: we can only minimize the number of eras by
postulating the existence of an otherwise-unknown variant of the
Macedonian calendar, else we must admit the existence of an era close in
time but distinct from the Vikrama era in order not to do so.

Explicit mentions of the Azes era are now known from several
inscriptions ranging in date from year 9 to year 136, (20) and
inscriptions of years 156 and 157 are safely assigned to that era. (21)
There is no doubt that the era was established by Azes himself, although
it need not celebrate his accession. (22) We have two items allowing us
to establish an approximate timeframe for its epoch. The first is the
Takht-i-Bahl inscription equating year 26 of Gondophares with year 103
of an unspecified era (KONOW 1929: 57-62). Assuming that there is a
historical basis for the well-known story that St Thomas visited the
court of Gondophares, he must have reigned within a generation of the
crucifixion, and the epoch of the Takht-i-Bahl era must fall in the
middle decades of the first century BC. Since the sequence of rulers
from Azes I to Gondophares is fairly well-established on numismatic
grounds, this range matches the likely dates of Azes himself. The second
is the Dasht-i-Nawur inscription dated year 279 Gorpiaios 15 under the
Kushan king Vima Takhto (FUSSMAN 1974), who is now known from the
Rabatak inscription to be Kaniska's grandfather (SIMS-WILLIAMS
2004). Allowing at least ca. 15 years for Vima Kadphises, (23) the epoch
of the era of Dasht-i-Nawur must be no later than ca. 165 BC. Assuming
this to be the Yavana era, the epoch of the Azes era must be not later
than ca. 40 BC.

Following the intercalary cycle described above, there are two
years in the Parthian Macedonian calendar in the mid-first century BC
with a Gorpiaios embolimos: 67/6 BC and 48/7 BC. Macedonian years began
in autumn, while the Rukhuna reliquary most likely gives a month in a
spring-based year, (24) so there is a potential ambiguity of half a year
if we use autumn-based years for calculations. Since Gorpiaios embolimos
is the same month as Ululu II, we may avoid this difficulty by using the
corresponding Babylonian years as the candidate epochs: 66/5 BC (= year
182 in the Arsacid era [AE]) and 47/6 BC (= AE 201). If we equate 66/5
BC to 1 Azes, it follows that the Rukhuna reliquary dates to AD 7/8, 1
Yavana = 194/3 BC, and 1 Kaniska = AD 127/8 = 321 Yavana. If we equate
47/6 BC to 1 Azes, it follows that the Rukhuna reliquary dates to AD
26/7, 1 Yavana = 175/4 BC, and 1 Kaniska = AD 127/8 = 302 Yavana.

We can decide between these alternatives. CR1BB has recently
conjectured that the Kaniska era began at the start of the fourth
century of the Yavana Era. (25) It appears we have shown that the epoch
is at least a year later. However, these calculations are for years
beginning in spring, while the Yavanas, Bactrian Greeks, certainly used
the Macedonian calendar as their native calendar, so their year
certainly started in the autumn. Just as the Macedonian year overlaps
two spring-based Babylonian years by roughly equal amounts, it also
overlaps two spring-based Indian years. Even if the Arsacid Babylonian
year started half a year after the corresponding Arsacid Macedonian
year, following the Seleucid precedent, there is no reason to suppose
that a spring-based Indian year of the Yavana era followed the same
rule. If we suppose instead that the Indian Yavana year started half a
year before the beginning of the corresponding Yavana Macedonian year,
it follows from 1 Azes = 47/6 BC (spring-based) that 1 Kaniska in the
Indian calendar began in the last half of 301 Yavana (Macedonian).

The Macedonian date of the Trasaka reliquary thus adds weight to
Cribb's conjecture. Falk has suggested that the use of dropped
hundreds in Kushan date reckoning was inspired by the Roman saeculum
(FALK 2001, 2004). The interest in centenaries now appears to be
considerably older. If the epoch of the era of Azes was 47/6 BC = AE
201, this era was itself was the second centennial of the Arsacid era.
These associations seem unlikely to be coincidental, and may well have
been the occasion for starting a new era in each case. These
considerations favor choosing 47/6 BC over 66/5 BC for the start of the
Azes era, and suggest that the Kushan Macedonian year began before the
corresponding Indian year. They also suggest that the epochs of the eras
of Azes and Kaniska may not be their first regnal years.

We can with some confidence equate the date of 172 Gorpiaios
embolimos 8 in the second inscription of the "Trasaka"
reliquary to 24 September AD 125. The era started in spring of 47 BC or
autumn 48 BC, and is most likely the Azes era. The date is the highest
yet known in that era. It is far from arbitrary, being the date of the
fall equinox, probably marking the end of the ninth intercalary cycle
and the start of the tenth. If the era is correctly assigned, it shows
that both the Azes and the Kaniska eras began as centennial cycles of
the earlier Arsacid and Yavana eras, and that the origins of the Vikrama
era again must be sought elsewhere.

3 Results

A comparison of the single Macedonian intercalary date from
Gandhara with Macedonian calendars outside Gandhara has shown that the
most likely model used in Gandhara was the Arsacid calendar. This date
of Gorpiaios 172 is not intercalary (embolimos/yambulima) when based on
an Azes era which is identical with the Vikrama samvat era. Within the
range of possible dates, a Gorpiaios embolimos is found in AD 124/5
according to the Macedonian calendar of the Arsacids. Starting from
here, the epoch of the era of Azes shifts to 48/7 (spring-based year) or
47/6 BC (autumn-based year).

Since the difference between the Azes and Yavana eras is known to
be 128 years in spring-based calendars, and since the Yavana Macedonian
year was behind the Yavana Indian year, the epoch of the era of the
Yavanas has to move too and lands in BC 175/4, almost exactly as
estimated by Cribb and errington on other grounds. The difference of one
year can be accounted for by the interaction of spring-based Indian
years and autumn-based Macedonian years.

It is hardly coincidental that Kaniska's year 1 is now
identical with year 301 in the Yavana era, and that year 1 of Azes is
year 201 in the Arsacid era. Both "new" eras thus are nothing
but continuations of older traditions. Seen this way, year 1 of Kaniska
need not define his first year in power; likewise, year 1 of Azes could
be placed anywhere in his reign.

Dates in the Azes era use a mixture of Iranian and Indian terms,
whereas the Kusanas prefer Macedonian terms throughout, both in their
era and in month names.

While the origin of the Arsacid reckoning is known, the start of
the yavana era can now be evaluated anew. We leave it to the historians
and numismatists to propose the most likely explanations.

Bivar, A. D. H. (1963), The Kanishka Dating from Surkh Kotal.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 26: 498-502.

--(1981), The Azes Era and the Indravarman Casket. H. Hartel

(ed.), South Asian Archaeology 1979: Papers from the Fifth
International Conference of the Association of South Asian
Archaeologists in Western Europe Held in the Museum fur Kunst der
staatlichen Museen preussischer Kulturbesitz Berlin, pp. 369-376. Berlin
(Dietrich Reimer).

(10) The earliest documented intercalary month in the Parthian
Macedonian calendar is given by a tetradrachm of Orodes II with the date
stamp TOP EM TI (assar 2003: 178, 182). While the year is not given,
other coins datestamped with embolismic months, including one explicitly
datestamped as Dystros Embolimos in SEM 317 = A.D. 5/6 and another as
Gorpiaios Embolimos in SEM 360 = A.D. 48/9, cover eight different
intercalary years, matching six of the seven intercalary years of the
Babylonian cycle. This dates the embolismic tetradrachm of Orodes II to
48/7 BC, the only intercalary year in his reign with a Gorpiaios
embolimos on that cycle.

(11) The shift is proven by a horoscope from Dura Europos dated SEM
487 Panemos 9, with planetary positions corresponding to 2-4 July AD 176
(Neugebauer & van Hoesen 1959, n- 176). It is debatable whether the
shift caused the start of the year to be moved from Dios to
Hyperberetaios.

(12) While the dated Parthian coinage clearly shows that Macedonian
years in the Seleucid era started in the autumn under the Arsacids,
Macedonian dates doubled-dated in the Arsacid and Seleucid (SEM) eras
show that the Arsacid year number was sometimes 64 years behind the
corresponding SEM year number and sometimes 65. assar (2003: 171)
suggests this discrepancy results from an Arsacid year starting in the
spring following the start of a Seleucid Macedonian year, aligned with
the Babylonian year. This most probably indicates that these Macedonian
dates are Greek representations of Babylonian dates, cf. Berossus (FGrH
3C1.680.F2) and the three "Chaldean" observations in the
Almagest (IX.7, XI.7) dated by Macedonian months but Babylonian Seleucid
era year numbers. In any case, for the purposes of this paper, it is
safe to assume a conventional autumn-based Macedonian year in Arsacid
territories; the argument is unaffected.

(13) The name of the Yavana Era most likely indicates a Bactrian
origin. Known Bactrian Greek year numbers include the regnal year 4 of
Antimachos i noted above, a year 24 found at ay Khanum, conjecturally
attributed to (an era of?) Eucratides i (Bernard 1985: 97-105), and a
tax receipt of a king Antimachos dated year 30 (clarysse & thompson
2007). It is likely that years 47, 48, 57 and 83 of the Yavana Era are
documented in coinage (Errington & Curtis 2007: 51,53).

(14) Most recently, Falk 2006: 396-401.

(15) Neugebauer 1948 describes the theory of solstices and
equinoxes in the Babylonian calendar.

(16) The system of "dropped hundreds" was first presented
by J. van lohuizende Leeuw in 1949 and suitably summarized in 1986.
Without this system the two Kaniskas melted into one, and Vasiska had
his place between Kaniska I and Huviska, instead of after Kaniska II,
not to speak of arthistorical confusion. Some criticism is listed Falk
2004.

(17) Since the term yavana was applied to western foreigners in
general it does not follow that this yona era is the one found on the
Maghera pedestal (fussman 1993: 113), which is dated to the year 116
during the reign of a yavana king (yavanarajya), most likely Azes
himself.

(18) Salomon 2005: 369: "Ultimately, the strongest point in
favor of the equation of the Azes and Vikrama eras is that, if it is not
accepted, we are left without a good explanation of the historical
origin of the latter in 58/7 B.C."; cf. already Konow 1929:
lxxxvii: "The chief reason for referring the older KharoshthI
records to the Vikrama era seems to be that it seems necessary to assume
an epoch in the first century B.C., as is the case with the Vikrama
Samvat, and most scholars are disinclined to assume the existence of two
eras beginning at about the same time." Salomon accepts the
assumption; Konow rejected it, though he later changed his mind.

(21) Year 156 (the first date of the present inscription): fussman
1985 corrected by Salomon 1995: 130; year 157: Salomon 1995.

(22) Falk 2006: 397 and 2009: 71 suggests the possibility that a
unification of several competing powers led to a sort of "pax
Aziana", deserving to be commemorated as the starting-point of an
era.

(23) This includes the Khalatse inscription mentioning Vima
Kadphises with a date of 287, as proposed by cribb; cf. salomon 2005:
376. The reading of Surkh Kotal inscription SK2 given in harmatta 1992:
427, year 299 Dios 19 under Vima Kadphises, if accepted, would add 5
years to this calculation, but it seems hard to square it with the
photograph in Bivar 1963: plate I, and it has been generally ignored for
good reasons.

(24) The astronomical analyses of the inceptions of the yuga of
Sphujiddhvaja in AD 22/3 and the Saka era in AD 78/9 presented in Falk
2001 show that both began with the first new moon after the vernal
equinox. The months of the Indian year are, in order, Caitra, Vaisakha,
Jyaistha, Asadha, Sravana, Bhadrapada, Asvina, Karttika, Margasirsa,
Pausya, Magha and Phalguna. Naksatra data from inscriptions of the Azes
era show that amanta and purnimanta Indian months were both used (Falk
forthcoming).

(25) Cribb 2005: 214; Errington & Curtis 2007: 55, 67.
Cribb's discussion assumes that the anonymous inaharaja rajatiraja
of the Mathura inscription of 299 (or 292) was Vima Kadphises, rather
than Kaniska before the introduction of his era, and gives no reason to
suppose that the apparent discontinuation of the Yavana era in royal
inscriptions is anything more than an interesting coincidence due to
lack of evidence. It is agreed (salomon 2005: 377; Errington &
Curtis 2007: 53, 54) that there are fourth century Yavana dates in
private inscriptions. A different problem is that Kaniska
"inaugurated the year one", according to Sims-Williams (2004),
where vossttmo is defined as "inaugurated" only on account of
the context. The alleged formal parallels, however, all show an
Harry Falk and Chris Bennett